Last week, Carnival Cruise Line announced the name of its 2020 new ship. The ship's name will be the Carnival Mardi Gras, which is a tribute to Carnival's first cruise ship the "TSS Mardi Gras". The original Mardi Gras began Carnival's fleet of ships when it left from Miami in 1972. This ship was purchased used and was only 27,000 tons. In comparison, the Carnival Mardi Gras will be Carnival's largest ship when its makes it debut in 2020. The ship will be Carnival's first liquid natural gas powered ship and, according to Carnival, will be the first ship in North America to be powered by liquid natural gas. The lower berth passenger capacity of the ship will be 5,200 passengers. At this time, we are still awaiting specific details of the ship's features and amenities. The ship's United States homeport will be Port Canaveral, but no additional itinerary information is available at this time. Carnival is expected to release more itinerary details in January 2019. In 2022, Carnival will be launching another XL class ship that will join the Carnival Mardi Gras. No additional details about the 2022 XL class ship are available at the time of writing. However, in the meantime, we can wait for more details about the Carnival Mardi Gras while it is constructed at the Meyer Turku shipyard in Finland.

For more information as well as an exterior rendering of the Carnival Mardi Gras: Click Here (link will open in a new window and away from RyG's Cruise Guide)

Earlier this week, Royal Caribbean and the Port of Galveston signed a Memorandum of Understanding regarding adding a third cruise terminal to Galveston. According to the Port of Galveston's press release, the agreement defined the terms for a long term lease with Royal Caribbean that could lead to up to 60 years. We currently do not have any specific designs or renderings for Cruise Terminal #3. However, the current estimation for the terminal's opening is Fall 2021. The new cruise terminal will be located on Pier #10 which is not too far down Harborside Drive from Galveston's Cruise Terminal #1 and #2. For those that are not familiar with Galveston, the Port of Galveston's current cruise terminals are located right next to each other. In order for a new cruise terminal to be constructed on Pier #10, the Port of Galveston says improvements to the pier bulkhead. Furthermore, parking, loading, staging, and other areas to facilitate the proper homeport operations of a cruise ship will be needed.

What cruise ship will Royal Caribbean move to Galveston?We do not have this information yet, but more than likely the ship will be larger than the Liberty of the Seas. The Liberty of the Seas currently sails seven night cruises from Galveston year-round.

​For more information please visit the Port of Galveston's official press release: Click Here(Link will open in a new window and away from RyG's Cruise Guide)